Ignite, Revive & Savor

…the art of wood fired baking with a signature, handcrafted copper Le Panyol oven.

Each model in this signature series is custom designed, as well as:

* 100% organic – Le Panyol ovens are made of 100% organic “Terre Blanche” clay. You can bake the best breads, crispy, chewy pizza crusts, and succulent roasted meats right on the hearth tiles. Unlike the drying atmosphere of a low mass gas or electric oven, the moisture and succulent juices inside any food are sealed and preserved in a Le Panyol.

* Fully Assembled - This series of Le Panyol copper ovens are fully assembled here at our headquarters in Maine by our staff of meticulous masons with years of experience designing and building Le Panyol ovens. Once your oven is set in place on a prefabricated masonry base or stand, let the baking begin!

* Beautiful – Our Le Panyol ovens are not only the most efficient, 100% organic oven in North America, they’re also a piece of art. Each copper dome is handmade by a local world-class copper artist here in Maine, and is signed by the artist to the new owner, guaranteeing the oven is entirely handcrafted, and custom designed to last a lifetime.

All of our turnkey Le Panyol ovens can come with a prefabricated steel stand with decking, as well as FREE stainless steel wood fired baking tools. Fill out our online form or call for more information.

 

Bakers from all over the country joined together with millers, grain growers, and experts in soil and sustainable farming practices last month for the 2010 Kneading Conference held in Skowhegan, Maine. We were honored to take part, arriving each day as the sun was rising to fire up our Le Panyol wood fired ovens.

Over the past four years, we’ve seen the conference stem from a small passionate group of oven builders, bakers and local innovators, to an event that has gained national recognition.

Like a fine loaf of artisan bread, this year’s presenters, attendees and volunteers, yet again, rose to the occasion. Providing their own expertise, enthusiasm and open minds to make connections and close the gaps in our local food systems from the ground up.

Despite the wealth of technical expertise and convergence of forward thinkers, there was and always has been a very strong emphasis on history throughout the conference. Maine used to feed thousands of local residents from wheat grown in Somerset County back in the 1800’s. Now less than 1% of the demand is grown here on local soil. Yet, there are still doubts that there is enough of a demand to support wheat growing as a viable enterprise, especially for the small farmers who don’t have the capital to invest in the equipment and resources required for planting and harvesting this finicky, yet fundamental crop.

The conference therefore lends itself as a support
network – soil experts supporting farmers, farmers supporting millers, millers supporting bakers, and bakers supporting oven builders – full circle, from seed to loaf.

With this type of movement, along with other developments like the newly renovated grist mill and local foods grocery in Skowhegan, we have a shot here in our hometown to close the gap between our bakers who yearn for wholesome Maine grains, and our farmers who need their wheat processed in order to bring to market.

After walking away from the conference, we all get a sense of renewed hope and enthusiasm. By strengthening these networks, we are revitalizing our local and agricultural economies, making greater strides toward a more sustainable future.

…meanwhile, eating really delicious bread.

 

Earlier this year, we had a few visitors interested in a Le Panyol mobile oven. They wanted to work with the oven hands-on before making their final decision. So we decided to throw together a little pizza party. Amy planned to bring her homemade ricotta, and Cheryl would prepare the dough and toppings.

A few weeks prior, Cheryl had discovered a pizza competition in her favorite magazine, Bon Appetit. The article featured previous winners from all over the world, along with their delicious pizza recipes. Maine, however, was nowhere to be seen. We may not be considered the pizza capital of the world, but with our abundant farmlands and fresh local food, and with the ever-growing interest in rustic eateries and wood fired baking, there are plenty of pizza makers around here who can certainly throw together a world-class pie.

This got Cheryl’s wheels turning. Determined to put Maine on the map, she practiced making different pizzas with local ingredients over the next few weeks. By the time our visitors arrived, she was ready to unveil her creation – Fresh lobster & asparagus pizza with ricotta cheese and tarragon infused olive oil.

We watched as the crackling fire lightly browned the toppings, and listened as the flavors came to life, sizzling to the surface. We took our first bite and knew we were tasting wood fired pizza at its best.

We’ve kept it under wraps for a while now, in pursuit of perfection, but at this point we feel guilty about not sharing such an unforgettable recipe. It just wouldn’t be fair to you and all the other pizza lovers around the world. As the saying goes, “ideas are like pizza dough, made to be tossed around.”

Cheryl’s Wood Fired Lobster & Asparagus Pizza

Ingredients

2                 1 lb lobsters cooked, shucked and cut into 1″ chunks
1 1/2          Cups cooked asparagus diagonally cut into 1″ pieces
1/4-1/2     Cup melted butter
2                Cups grated havarti or fontina cheese, or Amy’s homemade ricotta
(my preference)
Tarragon infused olive oil

Tarragon Infused Olive Oil

1/3             Cup extra virgin olive oil
1-2             Tbsp chopped fresh tarragon
1/4             Tsp sea salt

Mix all the ingredients in a small bowl, cover, and put in the refrigerator until ready to place on the pizza. Have pizza dough ready to go.

Cooked Asparagus

Take the asparagus and wash it. Cut off the woody ends so all you have is the delicate part of the stalk. Cut into 1″ pieces with a diagonal cut. It will actually look like the pieces are more than 2″ cut this way. Using medium heat, place 1-2 tbsp olive oil and a pat of butter in a skillet. The butter will keep the olive oil from overheating. Add the asparagus and saute for about 2-3 minutes but do not brown. Then add 2 tbsp of water, cover, reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes or until asparagus is bright green and tender. Before removing add sea salt to taste. Remove from pan and drain off any liquid and let cool in the refrigerator to stop the cooking process.

Boiled Lobster

Take the cooked lobster and remove from the shell. I like to use every bit of the lobster meat I can so this includes the claws and tail. Take these and cut into 1″ pieces.

Once all these ingredients are prepared, melt the butter, (this is the really decadent part), I dip the pieces of lobster in the butter, draining any excess off before placing on the pizza, mmmm…

On a Roll

Roll the pizza dough into the desired diameter and thickness. I like it on the thin side. Brush the surface of the dough with the tarragon infused olive oil making sure to include the chopped tarragon. Then I place the cheese, the butter dipped lobster and asparagus spacing them evenly around.

Place in the oven. Because the lobster and asparagus are already cooked, we only need to get the crust to brown, the cheese to melt and the toppings heated. I usually have my Le Panyol oven around 650 degrees, so it may only take 3-4 minutes. Make sure you move the pizza around to keep them from burning. Once the cheese is melted and the dough is browned on the bottom and edges, remove. Let stand a couple of minutes, slice, and bon appetit, real Maine lobster pizza!

This is just one of the many recipes we’ll feature on our blog this summer, which you can download here. Enjoy, and happy pizza making! Remember, the world is your lobster.

Note: This recipe makes 2 10″ pizzas. We use King Arthur Flour whole wheat pizza dough. For a non-wood fired lobster pizza, a pre-baked crust would need to be used. The toppings would then be placed in the same manner. The cooking time may vary. Cook until the cheese has melted and toppings heated.

Six years ago, a young and inspired environmental artist, Jeff Clapp, traveled to Nepal on a mission to clean up the trash left behind by the mountaineers of Mount Everest. When Jeff embarked on this journey, he wasn’t aware that it would soon change the course of his life.

Like the old saying goes, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” Jeff returned home with empty oxygen tanks and full of big ideas. Jeff took his wood turning tools and began handcrafting the abandoned and weathered tanks into beautiful pieces of art. Soon after, The Bells & Bowls of Everest was born. Since his journey to Nepal, Jeff has won many prestigious awards for his environmental leadership and unique artwork, which is now sold throughout the world.

When Jeff contacted us about building a soapstone masonry heater, we jumped at the opportunity. Having traveled to one of the coldest places in the world, building Jeff the safest, most dependable heater was the least we could do. We received this letter a few days ago, and are so happy his little soapstone heater is still the source of warmth and comfort we hoped it would be…

“I saw these guys at the Common Ground Fair and they had this nice soapstone stove on display. I had been drooling over them for years and finally decided to get one. Well let me tell you it turned out to be the most wonderful addition to our home. The cat and dogs have found new places to sleep next to it. On cold winter mornings I wrap my arms around it to enjoy the deep penetrating heat.

The second best part is it saved us over $2500 in heating cost for our home. We got rid of the propane fireplace and have oil heat and hot water. The first year we saved $1000 in propane and $1500 in oil. All I burned was standing dead wood from my property and it couldn’t have been more than two cords. The woods look great!”

Thanks,
Jeff Clapp
Environmental Artist/Bells From Everest
www.bellsfromeverest.com

As you probably know, there are a lot of great options out there for wood fired ovens. If you like to get your hands dirty, you can order a core package and design and build your own personalized oven. If you prefer a less hands-on approach, you can order a core kit or a fully assembled oven for a local mason to install in your home or backyard. If you’re a professional and like to cook on a larger scale, you can invest in a commercial-grade oven and share your love of rustic wood fired cuisine with the world.

The possibilities are endless.

No matter what your goal is, the most important factor to consider when choosing a wood fired oven is the material it’s made of.

As with any investment, you’ll do your research in order to find the right match, and you’ll weigh your options based mainly on quality and price. Once you’ve got these answers in hand, this is the point where many call us and ask the direct question, “Why is Le Panyol different?”

A simple question deserves a clear answer: The material.

When shopping for a wood fired oven and comparing brands, you’ll be choosing between different core materials – Firebrick, terra cotta, cold cast refractory, and since you’re on our Web site, you’re also considering Terre Blanche.

We chose to be the North American importer of Le Panyol ovens because we believe the core material, Terre Blanche, is perfect. Mined from a single unique deposit in Larnage, France, Terre Blanche is made of only Kaolin clay and Feldsbar.

These organic elements, in perfect proportion, create balanced thermal properties, enabling Le Panyol ovens to heat up quickly, while absorbing and retaining heat for long periods of time.

Put simply, an oven core made of Firebrick will need about 4 hours to reach temperature. The same size oven made of Terre Blanche will take a quarter of the time, and a fraction of the fuel to reach the same temperature.

Think of ovens like batteries. A battery with greater capacity holds a charge longer when fully charged than a thinner, smaller capacity battery. More expensive, more efficient batteries often charge more quickly because the base material is better at storing energy. The same goes for ovens.

Le Panyol Terre Blanche hearth tiles are 2 ½” thick and the arch stone tiles are 4-6” thick at their deepest point, not including insulation. These more substantial elements soak up heat and hang onto it. Terre Blanche’s balanced thermal mass requires less fuel to reach and maintain higher temperatures, drastically reducing wood consumption.

When you fire a Le Panyol oven, and keep the fire going until the oven is fully “charged” with heat, you can remove the fire and still have enough thermal charge to bake the next day.

If, however, the core is made of a thin, lighter weight material, it will not have the capacity to absorb and hold the same amount of energy and heat from a single fire, requiring you to continually add more and more fuel to keep the oven at temperature.

Just like with any tool, ovens don’t deviate from the old saying, you get what you pay for.

There’s one more issue our clients question, and that’s cost.

All we suggest in this regard is to focus on quality and weight, and don’t hesitate to run the numbers. Divide the price of the ovens you’re considering by the total weight and confirm the better value per pound. Other ovens may cost and weigh less, but it doesn’t mean you’ll save money in the long run.

After all, most people enjoy eating more than carrying wood.

We certainly hope this article helps answer your questions about why our Le Panyol ovens are different than others on the market, and how untypical Terre Blanche really is.

If not, we are always just a phone call away.

 

Cate is busy preparing for delivery to a local foods market, and I stopped in to get a few wood fired baking tips (and to help out just in case she needed a taste tester).

Cate’s passion for baking certainly ties in well with the family business of designing and building Le Panyol wood fired ovens. As a member of the staff, I’ve been able to experience the best of the best in wood fired baking, from pastries early in the morning, pizzas on our lunch breaks, and occasionally sizzling steaks on the hearth as the sun sets after a long day.

I initially thought, there has to be a secret behind this incredible food – the roasted veggies, meats, pizzas, and breads are like nothing I’ve ever tasted. Maybe she used some exotic spices, or family recipes passed down from generations? When I asked, Cate revealed that many of her secrets lay in the oven. All you need are a few simple ingredients…

1. Salt & pepper
2. Garlic & butter
3. Olive oil & garlic
4. Any simple herbs – Rosemary, Thyme, Sage or Taragon

That’s it. These basic ingredients are Cate’s go-to’s, and are sure to tempt the natural flavors and goodness out of any food you’re preparing.

There are certainly more tips for cooking with a live fire, so stay tuned for more cooking with Cate!

 

All of us here at Maine Wood Heat Co. are getting “fired up” about this year’s Kneading Conference and Maine Artisan Bread Fair coming up July 29^th – 30^th. The countdown has begun, the schedule is set, the presenter’s are lined up, and the ovens are ready to be lit.

This year, the conference will be held at the Skowhegan State Fairgrounds, the nation’s oldest continuously running fairgrounds since 1819. It’s only fitting, considering the fact that the conference, in part, is a celebration of the region’s history – a place that, during the same time period the fair began, relied on local wheat production to feed hundreds of thousands of people on a yearly basis.

The Kneading Conference and Bread Fair are a celebration of a revival not only in Skowhegan, but also nationwide. There’s a growing energy and support for local agricultural initiatives, slow food, whole grain production, and sustainability. This is a cultural movement in which farmers and growers are regarded as leaders in innovation, bakers are welcoming local whole grains with open arms, and slow local food is being savored by all who embrace it.

These schools of thought are not new, but the recognition and widespread support are giving a whole new meaning to an event like this. It’s real, it’s happening, and we are all a part of it in some way, shape or form.

Workshops at the conference will be centered on artisan bread and pastry baking, small farm grain cultivation and milling, concepts and techniques for baking with a live fire, and learning how to build a wood fired oven.

The Maine Artisan Bread Fair, held on July 31^st, is free and open to the public. Stop by and try the finest traditional wood fired breads, see first-hand grain planting and harvesting equipment, exchange seeds, find artisan baking tools or books, and enjoy good local food and music.

If you are interested in a wood fired oven for your home or business, these events also offer a great opportunity to get a closer look and to even try our Le Panyol ovens first-hand. When you arrive, ask for Albie, Scott or Cheryl Barden, or just head towards a copper oven. They are hard to miss!

Visit www.kneadingconference.com to register. We hope to see you there!

 

Heikki, although trained as an architect and also working as the editor of a Finnish magazine called Muoto (Form) started with a research interest in masonry heaters and then became much more deeply involved with masonry heaters when he formed his own small manufacturing and design company in Finland called Tulisydan Oy. For the past fourteen years, Heikki has been the head of the masonry heater organization in Finland and for the past decade and longer Heikki has been working to refine the design of a mason friendly, user friendly, relatively low cost, high efficiency, clean burning firebox cassette and core system which anyone could use and from which expect excellent results. Recently, Heikki produced ten units of his design as a pre-production prototype run and sent two of these units to the States. One was to be built and displayed and fired at Wild Acres and one was to be sent to an EPA approved testing lab in Washington State for emissions testing.

At Wild Acres, we built up the cassette core in two days with several professional masons in attendance and then started firing the unit. Heikki immediately noted from the large amounts of moisture boiling out of the ends of the logs that the wood was not dry. Given the short time of the Wild Acres event, we knew as well that we would have to burn the unit very aggressively to dry out the clay mortar in order to create an atmosphere in which the unit could burn cleanly and well. Once we were able to dry out the unit itself and find better wood, we were able to get the unit to burn much more satisfactorily. No fewer than seven other projects including three other heaters, a cooker, a bake oven and a smoker and a “rocket” Contraflow heater were also being built in a workshop format, so the attendee population was widely dispersed around all of these projects during the event. A cleaner burning and cooler burning masonry smoker was built and used which grabbed the attention of everyone there along with the annual building of a bake oven which produced pizzas for the annual outdoor party in the work area at the end of each Wild Acres session.

Heikki also gave a ninety-minute PowerPoint presentation on the history and state of the art of wood burning and masonry heaters in Finland. With handheld cameras, the presentation was recorded on video and will likely be available through the MHA Web site in the future. Before his presentation, I was unaware that Heikki has fifteen different wood fired appliances at his summer cottage in Finland. These include indoor and outdoor ovens, saunas, fireplaces, cookstoves, etc. His curiosity and need to perfect a way to burn wood cleanly and well have clearly been a driving force in his life for a long long time.  I also learned from Heikki that he advises against storing wood inside the home as he is concerned about the mold that can dry out on the wood fuel and enter the house atmosphere and affect children’s health. He advised that wood should be split and immediately put under cover in an outdoor well-ventilated wood shed and then brought into the home as it is needed. It is clear that the wood species available in Finland are primarily white birch and softwoods, more prone to quick rot than many New England hardwood species, but his input was significant and welcomed.

The first half of his presentation was historical and cultural and the second half of his presentation addressed the more technical questions and challenges of our times.  He described clearly the problems of particulate emissions and how to work to lower the emissions of both large and ultra fine particles. He described in detail how wood burns and gasifies and how it is necessary to capture and burn the gases in a manageable and clean way and then presented graphs and drawings showing how Contraflow heaters were once built and how his new research is showing how they should be best built today for maximum efficiency and lowest particulate emissions.

The current design he has worked out uses a thick inner heat exchange wall and a thick slightly separate outer or veneer wall with a total wall thickness of close to 10 inches. He pointed out that in a well-insulated modern modest Finnish home, that such a heater can be fired once a day every other day and keep the house toasty and warm. Americans are not yet building such modest high efficiency homes in great numbers but it was hopeful to see from his work, how a high efficiency system such as the one he has developed as a core, could be adapted to work cleanly and efficiently in our current North American house designs. Particularly impressive was a graph that showed a nearly unchanging steady stream of heat output over a twenty-four hour period when using one of his designs.

In addition to a long history of masonry heater designs, Heikki also showed us photos and told stories of several commercial artisan bake ovens that he had built, many in a workshop format, throughout Scandanavia. One of the ovens, which he designed and built in a workshop format, he described as a two-tier Finnish Contraflow design. The fire is lit in the afternoon and burns until it is out two or three hours later. The heat is stored in the mass and evens out over night. The baker comes in the next morning and then bakes all day long, doing as many as seven loads of bread. Heikki said that this Swedish oven can bake 500 kg of bread from one two hour firing of 70 kg of wood.

After Wild Acres, Heikki stayed a day with Tom Trout and then flew out of Ashville to Washington. Albie drove twelve hours to New Jersey and left his fully loaded truck there and then flew out of Newark to join Heikki and Tim Seaton in Spokane and Colville, for a week of testing at Ben Myren’s lab. The first core was packed up and crated for a rest in New Jersey and then came home to Maine with Albie where at some point in the future we hope to reconstruct the system for our crew here and do some more testing with it.

This trip, I predict, will prove to have been a very important trip for the future of masonry heaters in North America. His contributions here and in Finland have been very significant and we are very grateful that he agreed to spend another two weeks with us here in the States during this past April. Keep your eyes peeled here and on the MHA Web site for news about Heikki’s video recorded presentation and look as well for an informal report on our testing experience in Washington State at Ben Myren’s lab.

Mary Jane and her mother, Susie Challen, of Cayuga Ridge Estate Winery, had taken the trip to Maine a few months ago, hoping to try out our Le Panyol oven first hand. Mary Jane was starting her own business baking rustic pizzas at her parent’s winery in Ovid, New York, in the center of the Cayuga Wine Trail.

Like chardonnay and chevre, Mary Jane and Le Panyol were a perfect match.

Two months later, Cheryl and I loaded up our truck with her custom designed copper oven in tow. The journey would take us about 12 hours.

When we reached New York, we decided at the last minute to steer off Route 90 and take the more scenic route to Ovid. Route 20, once the major highway spanning across upstate New York and one of the oldest roads in the state, led us through charming towns that we could tell at one time had thrived along the major highway. We were awed by the unique architecture, the sky scraping windmills along the horizon, the novelty of the little towns, and the incredible, picturesque farmland in between.

By the time we reached Ovid, we thought we’d seen it all until we turned onto the Cayuga Wine Trail. The view of the valley that lay ahead of us, and the wineries scattered along the hillside opened our sleepy eyes.

We had arrived.

We followed the road down to Cayuga Ridge Estate. The vineyards surrounded us, and at the end of the driveway stood Mary Jane. She watched with excitement as we unwrapped the oven, unveiling her very own custom designed mobile oven, the copper gleaming as bright as her smile in the late afternoon sun.

After the oven received a warm welcoming and was tucked in for the night, we had the opportunity to try some incredible Cayuga Ridge Estate wine, and spend time with Mary Jane and her husband Seth, her parent’s Tom & Susie, and the rest of the Challen family. We learned about their long history making wine, their family business and close ties to their town and community. The copper oven symbolized a new generation for the winery, focusing on local ingredients and sustainability, and creating a place of gathering and comfort. It provides the opportunity to pair wholesome, rustic food alongside their world-class wine with family, friends and visitors from all over the world. Mary Jane is growing most of her own vegetables this season, relying on nearby family farms to fill in the gaps, and working with local cheese & meat producers wherever possible.

We are thrilled to work with such wonderful people, and wish Mary Jane and her family continued success at their winery and the best of luck with their wood fired baking endeavors throughout the years ahead. If you’ve never been to the Finger Lakes Region, plan a trip to visit Mary Jane and her Copper Oven. Take our word for it…It’s worth the trip.

In the meantime, check out Mary Jane’s Web site, follow her blog, or find her on Facebook and Twitter. Her pizzas and her stories are too good to miss.

www.slowfoodonthego.com
(PH) 607.220.8794

 

Luxury Home Quarterly

The “On the Rise” piece features trendsetting designs, up-and-coming businesses, new construction projects and innovative professionals. We’re thrilled our wood fired ovens were showcased in the outdoor living category.

Inside the glossy cover and rich, vibrant pages, our outdoor ovens are featured alongside LEED tested bamboo cabinetry, carved stone architecture, unique shade structures and environmentally friendly lighting and decking products.

As the cool spring breeze turns into an intense summer swelter, the desire to escape the stuffy kitchen, and cook, entertain and relax outdoors becomes more and more appealing. If you’re interested in a Le Panyol wood fired oven for your outdoor living space, don’t hesitate to contact us for a free consult.

Subscribe or learn more about Luxury Home Quarterly by visiting:

www.luxuryhomequarterly.com